Source URL: https://blog.cloudflare.com/bigger-and-badder-how-ddos-attack-sizes-have-evolved-over-the-last-decade
Source: The Cloudflare Blog
Title: Bigger and badder: how DDoS attack sizes have evolved over the last decade
Feedly Summary: If we plot the metrics associated with large DDoS attacks observed in the last 10 years, does it show a straight, steady increase in an exponential curve that keeps becoming steeper, or is it closer to a linear growth? Our analysis found the growth is not linear but rather is exponential, with the slope varying depending on the metric (rps, pps or bps).
AI Summary and Description: Yes
**Summary:** The text provides an extensive analysis of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, highlighting their evolution, metrics, trends, and mitigation strategies employed by Cloudflare. It emphasizes the increasing complexity and scale of these attacks, transitioning from IoT-based to more powerful VM-based botnets, and the sophisticated defenses necessary to counteract them.
**Detailed Description:**
– **Overview of DDoS Attacks:**
– DDoS attacks disrupt online services by overwhelming target systems with excessive requests, often making them inaccessible.
– They leverage a network of devices, resulting in substantial bandwidth or infrastructure exhaustion.
– Despite being an age-old attack type, they remain a persistent threat, particularly targeting high-traffic websites and critical infrastructure.
– **Current Threat Landscape:**
– Cloudflare reported mitigating over 14.5 million DDoS attacks in early 2024, averaging around 2,200 attacks per hour.
– The increase in attack size and frequency has been characterized as exponential over the past decade.
– **Metrics for Measuring DDoS Attacks:**
– **Requests per second (rps):** Measures HTTP requests; crucial for application-layer attacks.
– **Packets per second (pps):** Counts the number of packets; vital for network-layer attacks.
– **Bits per second (bps):** Measures total data transferred; indicates bandwidth saturation.
– **Evolution of Attack Sizes:**
– Historical metrics show significant growth, with modern attacks reaching terabits per second, illustrating an uptrend in malicious capabilities.
– Specific examples include recorded attacks peaking at 71 million requests per second in 2023 and up to 5.6 terabits per second in 2024.
– **Trends in Attack Origin:**
– A noticeable shift from IoT-based attacks to VM-based botnets, which leverage cloud resources for greater efficiency and power.
– This evolution reflects attackers’ precise strategies and adaptability to newer technologies.
– **Cloudflare’s Mitigation Strategies:**
– **Automated attack detection:** Utilizing machine learning for identifying threats in real-time, reducing reliance on manual intervention.
– **Global traffic distribution:** Using IP anycast across their network minimizes the impact of DDoS traffic on any single server.
– **Layered defense mechanisms:** Protection across network, transport, and application layers to tailor responses to various attack types.
– **Unmetered DDoS protection:** Ensures that customers can defend against attacks without the worry of bandwidth costs, thus providing equitable protection.
– **Conclusion:**
– As DDoS attacks become more sophisticated, organizations must leverage automated, scalable solutions like those offered by Cloudflare.
– Maintaining robust defenses is critical for business continuity as attackers continuously adapt to countermeasures.
This analysis underscores the necessity for ongoing adaptation and enhanced security protocols against DDoS threats, which are increasingly sophisticated and potent in the current digital landscape.